Thyristors

Thyristor is one of the most common semiconductor device in electronics, mostly in high power applications. In fact, a thyristor is like a diode, but the main difference is that the thyristor can be controlled in the circuit. The control system only can turn on the thyristor by injecting current to the gate terminal, and there is no control on the turn-off condition. Hence, most principles of diodes are valid for thyristors can they have pretty similar applications such as AC to DC converter (rectifier), chopper, and so on. In this article, thyristor junctions are discussed first, and its principles and applications are presented comprehensively.